Genesis 3 19

It's a bit gloomy but reality. "--you are dust and to dust you shall return." Of course it is the stunning insight to realize that we are not "in nature", dropped in as Genesis implies, to dominate, but "of nature", composed of the same atoms and molecules as everything else, so to arise from the earth and return to it is food for thought as we celebrate Ash Wednesday and contemplate our life between the dust of creation and the dust of reunion.That assertion of Genesis 3 no atheist could argue about. Last night I dreamt I was in a bar in Toronto with the pianist. I was served a poorly dressed pizza by a server dressed scanty.The pizza had a thin brush of something resembling cheese with a single tomato on tpp. She offered to speak to my psychiatrist and to my realtor for two sawbucks. I had to eat the pizza by hand and no serviette was offered. If I try to think of my life in between the dusts the glare of this metropolitan nonsense gives no immediate clue. Carl Jung where are you? I was out of my element.Toronto is a transit for me. It was hard to reconcile "in nature" and contemplation with my preparation for Ash Wednesday and the joy of my life between the dusts when I drew my being from the earth and joined the tree, the pansy, and the feathered and furry friends and mankind of every ilk as a part of earth. It is enough for now. If there is more my curiosity is peaked to wait and see. Oil and ash and a crucifix on my forehead gives me hope, but Genesis still implies the reality, "of nature".

The Valley of Jezreel

Some time around 1980 the pianist and I were atop of Mount Tabor, which tradition identifies as the Mount of The Transfiguration. We looked down the steep slope to the south at the Valley of Jezreel and beyond to the cotton fields of the Galilee. The valley floor was the road of the Babylonian army to Egypt and the Egyptians to Babylon. It was the road for the Greek and later Roman armies and eventually the Arab and Turkish armies and even later the British and German armies. It is a famous road and in the way of these destructive forces was Israel and the city of Megiddo, sitting dab-smack in the middle of the valley. It was destroyed, rebuilt , sacked and destroyed many times but is now as we observed a deep and testamentary excavation of the horror of war. The name of the city has given rise to the term "Armagiddon", As Jesus and his friends descended the north slope to go to his trial and death after his transfiguration he knew he was facing his own armagiddon. It's hard to stand atop that kind of mountain, look at that kind of valley, think of that sort of city, that man knowing the doom he faced and moving towards it, and not be touched by one's history of death. This week is Ash Wednesday when we receive our ashes.

The Elemental Haiku

The table of elements offered as source begs their use. I couldn't resist. My thesis at UBC in 1960 included measurments of the measured exchange of extracellular space Na driven into the intracellular space and the measured of the intracellular space K driven into the extracellular space in response to a hypertensive agent driver. The totals calculated from the measured inulin space in two Labrador Retrievers. An experiment to assess the relationship of hypertension and the exchange of elements through the cellular barrier. It was a full year experiment. The Haiku is as follows:Na and K exchange a placeIntracellular and extracellular spaceWith injection of a hypertensive trace.I'm sure the thesis could still be found in the Dept. of Anatomy under a pound of dust.

The fourth R.

There was a time when the three R's were taught in the schools. Reading, Riting and Rithmatic. That technology has replaced these no longer useful skills for anyone under fifty has led to the loss of critical thinking skills by the substitution of the fourth R that has appeared in spades, and that is Reductionism. In the evolution of communication methods of mankind, we went from a primitive oral society to the written, a visual society to a cognitive society. We have, from technology of today, returned to the primitive oral and visual society. A reductionist society reduces the complex to a simpler form, often oral and visual and governed by the casuistry one sees in advertising, politics and activist claims. "I'm really busy" ,they that look and listen say. ,"Give me a summary, or opinion, nothing to read in full. A talking head on a video is good." I have to confess I am guilty too and it's laziness on my part. Intellectual laziness. It's not that I don't read or write or calculate numbers but laziness has led me to read the first and last paragraph of a long article. That's caving in to reductionism and i'm not busy. Maybe I am becoming primitive as well as the under fifties.